Theme: Out Stretched Arm
Text: Exodus 3:7-20
Greetings: The Lord is good and His love Endures forever! Peace be unto you!!
Introduction: “Is the Lord's hand waxed short?” (Numbers 11:23) is our Annual Theme. We have seen the creative hands of God, the reigning hands of God. This month, we are thinking about the “Liberating Hands of God”, based on “With a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures forever.” – Psalm 136:12.
The out stretched Arm of God refers to delivering act of God, the power of God, the sovereignty, and the Omnipotent of God. It shows God’s absolute authority over every kingdom on the earth.
This Exodus 3:7-20 reveals that God is involved in the History of the World. The Narrative of Exodus can be divided as:
Chapters 1 to 16 deal with the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt and their departure.
Chapters 17 to 24 tell of the revelation of God at Sinai to all, the giving of the law and formation of a nation.
Chapters 25 to 40 are about the “tent of meeting”, the tabernacle, the dwelling of God.
Text:
Exodus 3:7-8 “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey…”.
Exodus 3:17 ‘I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites…’
We see three important actions of God from the perspectives of Liberation. He Listens, He liberates out, and he leads up. God’s identification in our pains is to exhibit his intervention and establish freedom in our identity.
1. God listens to the cries (Exodus 3:7,9).
God listens to the cries of the Israelites. The Lord has come down after he heard their cries rather than organised Prayers. Most of the times, It’s true that many of our organised prayers go in vain. We are tired of a tight program schedule, and having fixed a time limit. We are wearied and God also unhappy with our routine, lifeless worships.
Of course, OT is concerned about an appointed time to sacrifice in the morning, and in the evening of every day but are they offered with a sincere prayer is the real concern.
The Lord says that Most of the organised worship services, prayer meetings had become abhor to the Lord. He detests them. He hates them and disinterested in them. (Read: Isaiah 1:11-15, Matthew 9:13, Romans 12:1). Do our worships, services, and celebrations lead us to Christ for hollow experience or shallow experience?
Here, Torah brings an astonishing flurry of verbs in the Exodus events: “the Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their moaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the Israelites, and God knew” (Exodus 2:23-25). According to Torah, knowing is making the relationships intimate, engaged, and compelling. Knowing is the acquaintance of empathy and justice.
Hagar and Ismail cried and wept, God heard their cries. He answered them (Genesis 21:13-15).
When we read the sentence that ‘God remembered’, naturally we have a question. When Did God forget? Can God forget?
There is no such thing as forgetfulness before God’s throne. For God to remember is for God to respond, “I am here, to the people’s cries”. I am with them in their present afflictions and I will be with them in their future afflictions. So, “I am that I am.”
God heard the cries of the senior citizens, the young couples, the unmarried youth, and the infants of the Israelites in Egypt. He heard the cries of women, widows, weak and oppressed. God listens to our cries irrespective of problems and age. Some of our longings are for years, but some are very recent. But, God hears our cries. So, he liberates.
2. God liberates from the bondage (Exodus 3:8a, 10-12)
Zodhiates comments that their bondage in Egypt was certainly a part of God’s overall plan.
God made a covenant with Abraham. Your offspring shall be aliens, shall be selves, and shall be oppressed for 400 years (Genesis 15:13, Acts 7:6, EXODUS 1:1-14).
Whether it was 400 years or 430 years? The exact duration of the sojourn in Egypt was 430 years as per the records of Exodus 12:40-42. St. Paul affirms that the period from the confirming of the Abrahamic Covenant until the giving of the Law was 430 years (Galatians 3:17).
The calculation goes as it is: Isaac was sixty years of age when Jacob was born, and he went down into Egypt and lived as alien (Genesis 26:3), and Jacob lived alien for one hundred and thirty years (Genesis 47:8-9; Psalm 105:23), together makes it to one hundred and ninety; and then Israelites were in Egypt (Psalm 105:24-25) for two hundred and ten years, which completes the sum of four hundred years. (Hebrews 11:13)
“They were strangers for one hundred and ninety years; and then afflicted for the remaining two hundred and ten years in Egypt” (Barnes). The thirty years are calculated approximately from the time of first promise as per Jewish Rabbis.
One generation was one hundred years during the promise, then it became 40 years during the time of exodus, now its 25 years. No reward without testing, no commendation without performance. No success without struggles. We need to work, toil, and be trained for the betterment of life.
At first, they had a considerable privilege and position as government servants during the time of Joseph; and at last, they were afflicted under a hard and cruel bondage as slaves after Joseph was forgotten by the kings. Their affliction increased day after day and was getting worse. The oppression has deepened and advanced to appalling infanticide.
Most of the times, our life away from God, away from church life, away from fellowship may be so smooth, so successful and so prosperous. But slowly we will be got into bondage, captivity and slavery. Our bondage is nothing but our captivity in sin. The historical exodus points to our redemption in Christ.
God has “surely seen.” In Hebrew language it is raoh raeeti (seen seen). He has looked twice and found misery and torment. He is aware of it and knows our pain intimately. He is not the transcendent overseer of a mechanical universe. He is the God who suffers, who is heartbroken, and who grieves with His people. And so God chooses to act on their behalf. ‘He has come down to deliver’ indicates the hand of liberating Hand as an out stretched arm, it’s his singular act, and Israel had no way out without YHWH. We too struggle at many times. Nobody can redeem us.
The liberation is the greatest display of hesed (Steadfast covenantal love). It is found at many occasion in the TANAKH. Bible scholar Darrell L. Bock defines: Hesed is wrapping up in itself all the positive attributes of God: love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, and kindness, and loyalty–in short, acts of devotion and loving-kindness that go beyond the requirements of duty.
The essential element of hesed is the fulfilment of a need of the recipient that he is unable to do for himself. If there is any possibility that the beneficiary of the deed is capable of self-deliverance, hesed does not apply. Divine hesed comes into play. Hesed is freely given benevolence on behalf of the truly helpless. It goes beyond emotion to describe action-oriented love, mercy, kindness, and grace.
Billy graham says at the end, "you win." Yes, along the way there would be hardships and affliction. Your life is bound to have its share of heartache and sadness. No one can pass through their years on earth without some mistreatment and unfairness. In the midst of the pain, however, you must always cling to the unchangeable truth that in the end you win. ”
We may even echo the cry of the prophet Habakkuk: "O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear' Even cry out to You, 'Violence!' And You will not save" (Habakkuk 1:2).
When you experience bone-crunching difficulties, remember 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 affliction is for a moment and temporal. Angel testifies about the saints in heaven that they have come from great tribulation (Revelation 7:14-17). God shall wipe away their tears (Revelation 21:4).
Spurgeon - “Here is a promise that was to take four hundred years to ripen! Some of us cannot believe the promise if its fulfilment is delayed for four days; we can hardly keep on praying, if it takes four years; what would you think of a four hundred years promise? Yet it was to be so long in coming to maturity because it was so vast. If Abraham’s seed was to be like the stars of heaven for multitude, there must be time for the increase to come.”
Pharaoh will let you go (Exodus 3:20). The liberator says “I am that I am”. The liberator is the God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob. They all had gone after receiving the promises and covenants. They are no more but the promise giver exists forever! So, he liberates and leads.
3. God leads to success (Exodus 3:8b, 12,17)
The Israelite elders were informed that the plan is for them to leave Egypt permanently and relocate to Canaan but pharaoh will be informed of three days journey.
God specifies that He will lead the Israelites to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. This land is described as a land flowing with milk and honey, symbolising its richness and abundance. The Promised Land was a fertile and prosperous region that God had promised to give to the descendants of Abraham.
Egypt represents the bondage of sin and of the world in our lives. The Promised Land represents the relief, the freedom, the blessing, and the abundance found in Jesus through obedience and covenantal relationship with God.
The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land mirrors the journey of every believer, who is called to leave behind the ways of the world and walk in obedience to God’s leading. We are called to obey God’s leading and trust Him to guide us through the journey of life.
Salvation is not merely an escape; it is an elevation. God lifts His people from a low estate to a esteem one (Psalm 40:2; 1 Peter 2:9). God leads us through his presence, by his angel, by his word and by his servants.
God has provided them Moses and Aaron as their leaders. ‘My Presence shall go with thee’(Exodus 33:14). God leads us through his angels. In Exodus 23:20, God declares, “Here, I am sending an angel before you to care for you on the way, to bring you to the place that I have prepared.” “whenever the cloud lifted from the Tent, the Israelites would set out accordingly; and at the spot where the cloud settled, there the Israelites would make camp” (Numbers 9:17). God leads us by scriptures (Numbers 10:33). Simply by opening our sacred scripture, we are blessed with a direct link to God. We raise our consciousness and become more attuned to God’s words and world. They in turn become the signposts by which we may live and enrich our lives.
He personally guarantees to lift His people from real oppression, and escort them to a definite homeland, overcome every obstacle in their path, and settle them in abundant provision.
The verse showcases divine faithfulness, sovereign power, compassionate deliverance, and generous blessing—threads that weave all the way to Christ’s redemptive work and the eternal inheritance awaiting all who trust Him.
God leads us step by step, God reveals his plans step by step. God gives success step by step. We can’t be over fed. It takes time to receive all that promised to us. As a child grows in a family, the vision and mission of God grows with us. The promises come to realisations in its time. God leads us through the Holy Spirit, he liberates us (Romans 8:5,14, 21)
This is the first hint that Abraham himself was not to realise personally the fullness of God's purpose. God leads us step by step without revealing everything at once; and as revelation after revelation came to Abraham the horizon of God's purpose extended wider and wider. Abraham is to die in peace and be buried in a good old age. And he is called to exercise great patience (Genesis15:16). Another hint of the wide sweep of the Divine purposes. Other factors were at work, and many conditions had to be fulfilled before God's purpose could be completely realised.
God leads us through honest and committed leaders till then we are persecuted, disregarded and despised. When the cries of the oppressed reach God, He acts. In times of oppression, when leaders are deaf to the suffering of their people, God intervenes, raising new leaders to bring deliverance.
True leaders offer solutions, guide their people toward growth, and lead them from one level to another. Leadership is not without challenges; it is a journey of testing, growth, and dependence on God.
Isaiah 58:11 ESV ‘And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.’ The concept of "God leads" emphasises that individuals can expect divine guidance when following a path aligned with their conscience.
John Piper says that there are four ways God leads his people. 1. Through Decree: God sovereignly decrees and designs circumstances so that we end up where he wants us to be even if we don’t have any conscious part in getting there (Job 42:2). 2. By Direction: This is simply what God does for us by giving us the commands and teachings of the Bible. They direct us specifically what to do and what not to do. 3. Through Discernment: Most of the decisions we make are not spelled out specifically in the Bible. Discernment is how we follow God’s leading through the process of spiritually sensitive application of biblical truth to the particularities of our situation. 4. By Declaration: This is the least common means of God’s leading. He simply declares to us what we should do (Acts 8:26).
Conclusion: He Listens, He liberates out, and he leads up.
